?? Stop & Clean (STIMY #47)
???? STIMIES!
Have you heard of 'Stop & Clean'?
It's a Japanese concept taught in school where the school children are expected to clean up after themselves and also their community/school during allocated times (these responsibilities shift every week). It's one of the reasons why Japan is one of the cleanest countries to visit!
This came into play when I went for a pickleball session in Karuizawa.
When the clock struck 9pm, everyone jumped into clean-up mode.
No question. No hesitancy.
Everyone was grabbing balls, collecting rackets, and folding and packing the nets away. The 70-year-old Japanese lady was the first to grab a mop and clean the entire court!
This got me thinking about the power of habits & community.
Habits inculcated since young are hard to shake off. But what really strengthens them is the community that you're in.
Take pickleball for instance: I didn't grow up in Japan. I'd never heard of the stop & clean concept before this. But the moment I saw everyone chipping in to help clean in, it wasn't a question of 'should I help?'
But 'how can I help?'.
Hang around with an entrepreneurial crowd, and you might find yourself driven to launch new businesses every other month.
Hang around people who've quit their 9-5 to build unconventional career paths, and you might find yourself thinking what you can do to escape the rat race.
But how do you find the right community?
When I was younger, I used to think that I was 'stuck' with the people that I knew.
I have a full-time job, I rarely had free time and it is impossible to make new friends.
My friendship circle then was whoever I had kept from childhood & whom I'd met at work.
That might be true to a large extent but... not really.
Thanks to the So This Is My Why podcast .
It gave me an excuse to talk to anyone in the world, understand how they had built their lives/careers and whether all their sacrifices were worth it.
Beyond that, I also had the chance to make new friends.
I don't hit it off with every guest, of course. But sometimes, I do.
So we hang out more, share ideas/advice, introduce each other to our own friends and before you know it... a whole new friendship circle / community is born.
Which leads me to conclude that:
We're never too old to make friends and build communities that we want to be a part of but we have to be:
And keep doing it.
Communities are a huge part of what makes life worth living.
They've certainly been a huge reason behind why I've enjoyed being in Karuizawa so much!
What do you think?
How are you building/getting involved in communities that interest you?
Let me know by leaving a comment below! ??
Ex-Lawyer turned 'Lucky' Hotelier & Multiple Michelin-Starred Restaurateur?!
Want to know how a lawyer became a successful hotelier with 40 hotels & 9 Michelin-starred restaurants in Singapore, London, Ireland, Shanghai & Sydney?!
Look no further than this STIMY guest - Lik Peng Loh the founder of Unlisted Collection:
Lik Peng grew up expecting to be a doctor, like his parents. But ended up practising as a commercial litigator for 3 years.
The Asian Financial Crisis hit & a rundown property called Hotel 1929 came onto the Singapore property market.
It was in Singapore’s red light district.
Lik Peng he took a year off from law to develop the hotel before returning to law but...
Life didn’t turn out that way.
He ended up opening his first restaurant at Hotel 1929, then another hotel and restaurant, and another and…
He ended up buying so many properties in the area that his friend once remarked that the street should be renamed “Peng Road”! ??
Lik Peng has now become one of Singapore’s most established hoteliers, even though:
?? He struggled with imposter syndrome for a long time when people called him a hotelier!
?? Would take on projects “by the seat of his pants” without an eye towards numbers (until recently!)
His 9 Michelin-starred restaurants include:
??: Burnt Ends, Marguerite, Nouri
????: Cloudstreet, Da Terre
领英推荐
??????: Zen
So.
How did Lik Peng make this successful career pivot?
Why does he split equities with his chefs and how does he identify the partners that he goes into business with?
I guess you’ll just have to listen to Ep 140 on the So This Is My Why Podcast to find out. ??
Listen here: YouTube , Website , Spotify , Apple Podcast
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Interesting Discoveries
I spend hours on LinkedIn & love finding posts that inspire thought and teach me how to be a better writer on the platform. Here are some that caught my eye recently:
Quick Thoughts
Let's talk about the 3-line rule.
If you've ever been on your LinkedIn main feed, you'll notice that LinkedIn doesn't show you the entire post.
They only show you the first 3 lines + photo/video/document attached.
If you read those 3 lines and want to read the rest, then you click the 'more' button for the post to expand.
Which is why LinkedIn creators are obsessed with the first 3 lines aka the opening hook.
If I can't hook your attention the moment you read my first line, my entire post is dead.
You won't click 'more'.
You won't register as an impression.
And LinkedIn will relegate said post to oblivion.
If you look at the LinkedIn posts chosen for this week (above), you'll notice that they all have strong hooks.
It's intentional.
Sometimes, we spend more time on the opening hook than the rest of the posts (just as YouTubers agonise over their thumbnails & scrap entire videos if they cant come up with the right title) because the whole point of writing a LinkedIn post is for people to actually read.
So don't sleep on your opening hook. ??
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Ling Yah
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Human Rights | Refugee & Statelessness Protection | TEDx Speaker
1 个月I've learnt to seriously doubt them when they say they are beginner pickleballers??